Badfinger

Badfinger

Badfinger were a rock band formed in Swansea, Wales in the early 1960s and were one of the earliest representatives of the power pop genre. During the early 1970s the band were touted as the heir apparent to The Beatles, partly because of their close working relationship with the 'Fab Four' and partly because of their similar sound. However, Badfinger fell victim to some of the worst elements of the music industry, resulting in its two principal singers and songwriters committing suicide in 1975 and 1983.

Biography

The Iveys

Badfinger originated with Pete Ham (lead guitar/keyboards) , Ron Griffiths (bass guitar) and David 'Dai' Jenkins (guitar), who formed The Iveys, named after a street in Swansea, Wales, in 1964. By March of 1965, Mike Gibbins had joined as the drummer and the band began playing locally with such national groups as the Spencer Davis Group, The Who, The Moody Blues and The Yardbirds. By March 1966, the band had retained a personal manager named Bill Collins and moved their base to London, performing both as a backing band for David Garrick (a local singer) and as a solo act. The following year, Jenkins was asked to leave the group and was replaced by Liverpudlian rhythm guitarist Tom Evans.

A well-received stage act on the London circuit, performing a wide range of covers from Motown artists to The Beatles, The Iveys garnered interest from several record labels. However, it was not until Mal Evans, the longtime "roadie" for The Beatles and an employee of their Apple label, took up their cause that they were signed with Apple in 1968. Mal Evans took several demo tapes of the group to each of the individual Beatles and finally got approval for signing them from Paul McCartney, George Harrison and John Lennon. Each of The Iveys was also signed to Apple Corps' Apple Publishing subsidiary. The Iveys were identified by first name only in their writing and performing credits, a gimmick which continued throughout their Badfinger years (Wish You Were Here in 1974 was their first album to list last names).

As illustrated by the label to the German release of Maybe Tomorrow, The Iveys were identified by first name only.

The Iveys released their first single, "Maybe Tomorrow" (a Tom Evans song), in late 1968, reaching the top 10 in several European countries and Japan but only #67 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. It failed to chart in the U.K. Another Tom Evans song, "Storm in a Teacup", was included in an Apple EP produced for Walls Ice Cream, along with songs by James Taylor, Mary Hopkin and Jackie Lomax.

Due to the chart success of "Maybe Tomorrow" in Europe and Japan, a follow-up Iveys single was prepared. "Dear Angie" (a Ron Griffiths song) was released in those markets in July of 1969. Along with the second single, The Iveys' album, entitled Maybe Tomorrow, was issued in Italy, West Germany and Japan in 1969. Plans to release both the second single and the album in the U.K. and U.S. were halted for reasons that were never made entirely clear by Apple.

At this low ebb, McCartney gave The Iveys a boost when he offered them the chance to record and release "Come And Get It," a song he had written for the soundtrack of the film The Magic Christian, which starred Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr. McCartney went on to produce the song for the band, as well as the group's original compositions of "Carry On Till Tomorrow" (commissioned as the main title theme) and "Rock Of All Ages". These three tracks would appear both in the film and on the soundtrack album. Because Ron Griffiths fell ill midway during the sessions, Tom Evans had to double on bass on some tracks.

Shortly after the McCartney sessions, Griffiths was asked to leave the group. Reportedly, the primary reason he was dispatched was because he was the only married occupant of the communal band home and he was also raising a child there; this reportedly created friction with Tom Evans. Griffiths left in November of 1969.

Badfinger: the Apple years

In November of 1969, while the release of "Come and Get It" was still pending, the band and Apple Records agreed that a name change was in order. After much internal debate at Apple, the group changed their name to Badfinger, which was suggested by Apple's Neil Aspinall. Other suggestions included: The Glass Onion, The Prix, and The Cagneys from John Lennon, and Home from Paul McCartney.

The name Badfinger was a reference to "Bad Finger Boogie", an early working title of Lennon's "With a Little Help from My Friends", so called because Lennon had composed the melody on a piano using his middle finger after having hurt his forefinger. "Come and Get It" was chosen to debut the new Badfinger name.

After unsuccessfully auditioning numerous bass guitarists, and with the release date of "Come and Get It" fast approaching, Badfinger hired Liverpudlian lead guitarist Joey Molland. The addition of Molland required Evans to shift permanently to bass, something Evans was willing to do for the sake of expediency.

"Come and Get It" was released in December 1969 in the U.K. and January 1970 in the U.S. It was successful throughout Europe, where it duplicated The Iveys' success, and also in the United Kingdom and the United States, where it reached the Billboard Top 10. The track also accompanied the opening scenes of The Magic Christian film. Because the soundtrack album would not be released on Apple, the three soundtrack songs were combined with some other Iveys tracks (including seven songs from Maybe Tomorrow) and released as Badfinger's first album, Magic Christian Music. It was released several months after the film's December 1969 premiere and peaked at #55 on Billboard.

New Badfinger recording sessions commenced in March of 1970 with Mal Evans producing. After only two songs were completed, Geoff Emerick took over as producer in late June of 1970. The album consisting of songs from both sessions, No Dice, released later that year, peaked at #28 on the Billboard charts. It was accompanied by the single "No Matter What," which reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 at the end of the year. More notably, another track from No Dice, "Without You", became an international hit when released in 1972 by John Lennon's friend Harry Nilsson (reaching the Billboard #1 slot), and it was eventually covered by hundreds of artists.

While in America in April of 1970 and scouting the prospects for a tour, Collins was introduced to New York businessman Stan Polley. Polley eventually signed the group to a business management contract in November of 1970. Although Polley's professional reputation was solid at the time, his alleged connections to organized crime and dubious financial arrangements would only later become known to the group.

Under Polley's direction, Badfinger toured in America for most of the autumn and were generally well received, although the group complained they were living in the shadow of The Beatles because of their close connection to the band. For example, in a review of No Dice in 1970, the critic for Rolling Stone opined that "[i]t's as if John, Paul, George, and Ringo had been reincarnated as Joey, Pete, Tom, and Mike of Badfinger." Media comparisons between Badfinger and The Beatles would continue throughout Badfinger's career.

During this time, Badfinger also recorded many sessions for fellow Apple Records labelmates, notably playing acoustic guitar on tracks from George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" and providing backing vocals on Ringo Starr's single "It Don't Come Easy." Evans and Molland performed on John Lennon's album Imagine, and all four members of the band appeared as backup musicians throughout George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh in August 1971, with Ham soloing on "Here Comes the Sun".

George Harrison began producing Badfinger's third album Straight Up in the Spring of 1971. Harrison later pulled out of the project and the album was completed by Todd Rundgren. Straight Up was released in the U.S. in December of 1971 and spawned two successful singles: "Day After Day" (#4), which went gold, and "Baby Blue" (#14). The album (Badfinger's most commercially successful record) includes uncredited special guest appearances from Harrison, Leon Russell and Klaus Voormann.

By 1972, the group was under contract to release one more album with Apple Records. Despite Badfinger's rising success, Apple was facing troubling times overall and its operations were closing down. Label president Allen Klein informed Badfinger's management that the label would not be generous in a new contract. Although business manager Polley was now openly under a cloak of suspicion for mis-management of finances by other clients he had secured, such as Lou Christie and Charlie CaLello -- one allegation published in a series of New York Times articles representied him as a one-time "bagman" for the Mafia -- the Badfinger members and Collins continued to follow Polley's lead and were not investigating any rumors regarding him. There was never a clear indication they really knew much of the scandals around Polley at that time.

The sessions for what would be Badfinger's fourth and last album for Apple, Ass, began in early 1972 at Apple's basement studios at 3 Savile Row and would continue at five recording studios over the next year. Rundgren, who was originally hired to produce, quit in a financial dispute during the first week; the band then produced itself, but Apple rejected the album. Finally, Badfinger hired Apple engineer Chris Thomas to co-produce and complete the album.

During the recording of Ass, Polley negotiated a $3 million dollar deal with Warner Brothers Records that included an album from the group every six months for the next three years. Ass featured a metaphoric record cover of a donkey (Badfinger) following a carrot (a coming lucrative record contract with Warner Brothers). The Ass release date would be held up by legal proceedings between Apple and Polley over Joey Molland's song publishing, which began at the time of Badfinger's departure from Apple. After the delayed release, both Ass and its accompanying single, "Apple of My Eye", failed to reach the Billboard Top 100.

Badfinger: the Warner Brothers years

Six weeks after the Ass sessions were completed, Badfinger entered the studio to begin recording material for their first Warner Brothers release, Badfinger (the intended title, For Love Or Money, was excluded from the album pressings). Badfinger and its two accompanying singles, "Love Is Easy" (U.K.) and "I Miss You" (U.S.), were unsuccessful. Badfinger did manage to maintain U.S. fan support as a result of several American tours. One concert at the Cleveland Agora on March 4, 1974 was recorded on 16-track tape for a possible live album release, although the performance was deemed unsatisfactory at the time.

Following the group's last American tour, Badfinger recorded Wish You Were Here at the Caribou Ranch recording studio in Colorado and AIR Studios in London. Unlike their previous two albums, Badfinger's Wish You Were Here was well received by Rolling Stone Magazine and other periodicals upon its release in October of 1974.

Internal friction centering on band management, money, and group leadership had been growing within Badfinger during the Polley years, as the band's success was not matched by its revenues. By 1974, Joey Molland's wife, Kathie, began taking a more assertive role in the band's politics, which did not endear her to Molland's bandmates, particularly Ham. Just before the band began rehearsals for an October 1974 U.K. tour, Ham suddenly quit the band during a management meeting, stating that he didn't want to belong to a band managed by Kathie Molland. He was replaced by guitarist/keyboardist Bob Jackson. During Ham's three-week hiatus from the group, Polley began shopping Ham as a solo act. However, just before the U.K. tour began, Ham rejoined the group after Polley was informed by Warners that it would have little to no interest in Badfinger if Ham was gone. Jackson remained as full-time keyboardist, making the band a quintet. After the tour, the friction within the group continued, and this time Molland quit the band.

Simultaneously, Warner Brothers' publishing arm was becoming increasingly troubled by a lack of communication from Stan Polley regarding the status of an escrow account of advance funds. Per their contract, Polley was to put in safe-keeping U.S. $100,000 in a mutually-accessible account for Warner Publishing and the group to access, but Polley had not revealed the account's whereabouts to Warners Publishing, and he reportedly ignored warnings from it. Unbeknownst to the band, threats of litigation were going on behind the scenes.

With Molland gone and an increasingly unstable situation overall, Polley pressed the band to go back into Apple Recording Studios to record its third album under the Warner contract. Within two weeks, tracks were cut for an album entitled Head First, and rough mixes were distributed to the musicians and to Warner Brothers in America. Before the album was formally submitted to Warners, though, Warners Publishing filed a lawsuit against Stan Polley and Badfinger on December 10, 1974 in L.A. Superior Court. Polley then allegedly submitted the Head First tapes to Warners in an attempt to secure one more album advance prior to the litigation, but Warner Publishing quickly rejected the tapes, and Warner Brothers refused to pay the bonus. The legal action soon forced Warners to stop the promotion and then withdraw distribution of Wish You Were Here worldwide, thus halting Badfinger's career.

A suicide, a reunion, and another suicide

Badfinger spent the early months of 1975 trying to figure out how to proceed with the unclear legal situation at hand, including the one withdrawn album and the one rejected album.

Years earlier, Collins and Polley had established Badfinger Enterprises, Inc., which signed the members to various contracts that dictated that receipts of touring, recording, publishing and even songwriter and performance royalties would go into holding companies controlled by Polley. This led to a salary arrangement for the group, which various members had at times complained was inadequate compared to their gross earnings. But by March 1975, salaries were no longer arriving and panic set in, especially for Pete Ham, who had recently acquired a house and whose girlfriend was expecting a child that May.

According to Bob Jackson, booking agents and prospective managers routinely turned the band away because of their restrictive contracts with Polley. Ham reportedly tried many times to contact Polley by telephone during the early months of 1975, but was never able to reach him.

On 24 April 1975, Ham hanged himself in his garage studio in Surrey. His suicide note, addressed to his girlfriend and her son, blamed Polley for his misfortunes. It read: "Anne, I love you. Blair, I love you. I will not be allowed to love and trust everybody. This is better. Pete. P.S. Stan Polley is a soulless bastard. I will take him with me." Ham's daughter Petera was born a month after his death.

After Ham's death, Badfinger dissolved. Tom Evans and Bob Jackson helped establish a group called The Dodgers. The group released three U.K. 45's on Island Records in 1976. "Don't Let Me Be Wrong" was the only stateside release, but it failed to chart, and the management of the band fired Evans for drunkenness before cutting an unsuccessful album entitled Love on the rebound. Meanwhile, Joey Molland had started a band in 1975 with Mark Clarke (Colosseum) and Jerry Shirley (Humble Pie) called Natural Gas. The group was the opening act for Peter Frampton in 1976 and released an album and several singles, but none managed to chart. Mike Gibbins performed session drumming for various Welsh acts, including Bonnie Tyler on her international hit "It's A Heartache," which reached #3 on the U.S. charts.

By 1977, both Molland and Evans were out of the music business; Molland occasionally laid carpet while Evans worked with a company that insulated pipes. That year, drummer Kenny Harck and guitarist Joe Tansin recruited Molland for a new band. When the new group needed a bass player, Molland suggested Evans, who joined after a visit to California in 1978. Suggestions from record companies led to the decision to rename the new band as Badfinger, and the “comeback” album Airwaves was released in 1979. Harck was fired from the band during the sessions and Tansin officially left the band immediately after the album was completed.

To promote the album, Molland and Evans recruited Peter Clarke (Stealers Wheel) on drums and Tony Kaye (Yes) on keyboards. The single "Love is Gonna Come At Last" reached #69 on the Billboard charts. The new Badfinger then recorded and released a second album, Say No More in 1981, with Glenn Sherba added on guitar and Richard Bryans replacing Clarke on drums. This LP was distributed on the independent label Radio Records. Its single, "Hold On," reached #56 on the Billboard charts. Ultimately, Evans and Molland split acrimoniously in 1981.

During 1982 and 1983, Molland and Evans operated rival touring bands, both using the name Badfinger, which caused serious conflict in their relationship. Evans teamed with Bob Jackson on both tours and at times with Mike Gibbins, guitarist Adam Allen, guitarist Reed Kailing (The Grass Roots), guitarist Donnie Dacus (Chicago), and drummer Lenny Campanaro. For a while, Molland teamed with Joe Tansin. During this period, Evans and Jackson signed a management contract with a Milwaukee businessman. Both were later sued (Evans for U.S. $5 million) when they abandoned the contract due to their claim of management obligations being unperformed.

On November 19, 1983, Evans and Molland argued on the telephone about the past income still in escrow from the Apple era and the lucrative "Without You" performance royalties Evans was receiving. Following the argument, Evans hanged himself in the garden at his home, in a manner similar to Ham.

In August 1984, Molland, Gibbins and Jackson played a small number of U.S. dates as part of a 20th Anniversary of the British Invasion in America package tour. In 1986, Molland and Gibbins reformed a touring band called Badfinger, until Gibbins left for good in 1990.

Subsequent Iveys and Badfinger releases and activities

The first "greatest hits" collection of Badfinger, covering just its two Warner Brothers album, was entitled Shine On and released by Edsel Records in the UK in 1989. In 1990, Rhino Records released another Warner Brothers-era compilation, which also included material from both Airwaves and the previously-unreleased Head First, entitled The Best of Badfinger, Vol. 2.

A greatest hits collection covering just Badfinger's first four albums on Apple, called The Best Of Badfinger to mesh with the Rhino release, was released by Apple in 1995. The most comprehensive collection, which included tracks from Apple and Warner Brothers (but nothing from Head First or the post-Ham recordings), was called The Very Best Of Badfinger and was released by Apple in 2000. To date, no anthology or boxed set of Badfinger releases has been issued.

Joey Molland was instrumental in releasing the 1974 Cleveland Agora recording on Rykodisc in 1990, called Day After Day: Live, which received mixed critical reactions due to his substantial overdubbing and a rearranged track order. The CD also sparked a lawsuit when the band's accounting firm became alerted to the release, readjusting Molland's royalty income because Molland had claimed to have sole rights to royalties from the album. After the Rykodisc royalties were properly distrbuted, Molland sued the other members and their families for expenses and producer's royalties, which he ultimately received in part.

Molland also has been criticized for his 1995 re-recording of Badfinger's hit songs for a CD release. The recordings have since been distributed with packaging and photos displaying the original 1970s version of the group, although Molland is the only member of Badfinger from that time who appears on the recordings.

In 1988, Straight Up ranked as the most-requested CD release among out-of-print albums in a readers poll for Goldmine magazine; it finally made it to CD in 1993.

Bob Jackson, meanwhile, managed to get the "rough mix" version of Head First (that had been prepared by Apple engineer Phil McDonald in December 1974) released on CD in 2000, after Warner Brothers refused to make the original master tapes available for remixing.

In 2002, Mike Gibbins released a two-disk set of a Badfinger performance in Indiana made on a consumer cassette recorder, entitled Live 83 -- DBA-BFR, recorded on October 19, 1982. The band at that time consisted of Evans, Gibbins, Jackson, Reed Kailing and Donnie Dacus. However, the poor quality of the recording, which is closer to a bootleg recording than an official release, mars the performance.

A detailed biography on Badfinger written by Dan Matovina came out in 1997 entitled Without You: The Tragic Story Of Badfinger, and a 2nd revised edition of the book came out in 2000.

Two separate CDs of Apple Publishing music, entitled 94 Baker Street and An Apple A Day on Cherry Red Records, were released in 2003 and 2006 repsectively. These CDs contain nine songs by The Iveys, including a demo version of "Maybe Tomorrow" and eight previously-unreleased Iveys performances of songs wriiten by Tom Evans, Pete Ham or Ron Griffiths.

Post-Badfinger solo activities

Joey Molland performs occasionally in the United States as "Badfinger" or "Joey Molland's Badfinger" and has released three solo albums, After The Pearl (1985), The Pilgrim (1992) and This Way Up (2001). He also privately released a CD collection of demos called Basil (1998).

In 1997 and 1999, posthumous collections of Pete Ham home recordings and demos were released on two separate CDs, 7 Park Avenue and Golders Green. Ham's final compositions, such as "Ringside" and "No More," reflected his depression over the financial and management situations that he faced.

One posthumous Tom Evans CD was released in 1995, Over You: The Final Tracks which was produced by friend and post-Badfinger songwriting partner, Rod Roach.

Mike Gibbins released his first solo album on Forbidden Records in 1997, called A Place In Time. Between 2000-2003, he released 3 more solo albums on CD (More Annoying Songs, Archeology, and In The Meantime) on his own private label, Exile Music, with the first, A Place In Time being remastered and reconfigured for re-release in 2001. Gibbins died in his sleep at his home in Oviedo, Florida on October 4, 2005. He was 56.

In 1995, Bob Jackson joined The Fortunes, a 1960s English group still playing on the nostalgia circuit. He is currently working on his first solo album, and is still touring in the U.K. with The Fortunes.

A Badfinger convention in Swansea, Wales held in May 2006 brought together Jackson, Griffiths, and several surviving members of the Ham, Evans and Gibbins families.

Personnel

Membership of The Iveys/Badfinger underwent numerous personnel changes and, at the end, none of the original members of The Iveys were still in Badfinger. (Listings for 1978 to 1981 only include the members of Badfinger that played on the group's albums.)

The Iveys 1965-1967	Pete Ham - vocals, guitar, keyboards Ron Griffiths - vocals, bass David "Dai" Jenkins - vocals, guitar Mike Gibbins - vocals, drums, percussion
The Iveys 1967-1969	Pete Ham - vocals, guitar, keyboards Tom Evans - vocals, guitar, bass Ron Griffiths - vocals, bass Mike Gibbins - vocals, drums, percussion
1970-1974	Pete Ham - vocals, guitar, keyboards Tom Evans - vocals, bass, guitar Joey Molland - vocals, guitar, piano Mike Gibbins - vocals, drums, percussion
1974	Pete Ham - vocals, guitar, keyboards Tom Evans - vocals, bass, guitar Joey Molland - vocals, guitar, piano Bob Jackson - vocals, keyboards Mike Gibbins - vocals, drums, percussion
1974-1975	Pete Ham - vocals, guitar, keyboards Tom Evans - vocals, bass Bob Jackson - vocals, keyboards, guitar Mike Gibbins - vocals, drums, percussion
1975-1978	inactive
1978-1979	Tom Evans - vocals, bass, guitar Joey Molland - vocals, guitar, piano Joe Tansin - vocals, guitar Kenny Harck - drums
1979-1981	Tom Evans - vocals, bass, guitar Joey Molland - vocals, guitar, piano Tony Kaye - keyboards Glenn Sherba - guitar Richard Bryans - drums, percussion
Joey Molland's Badfinger 1981-1982	Joey Molland - vocals, guitar, piano Joe Tansin - vocals, guitar Larry Lee - bass Bobby Wickland- drums
Tom Evans' Badfinger 1982	Tom Evans - lead vocals, bass Bob Jackson - lead vocals, keyboards, guitar Mike Gibbins - vocals, drums, percussion Adam Allen - vocals, guitar
Tom Evans' Badfinger 1982-1983	Tom Evans - lead vocals, bass Bob Jackson - lead vocals, keyboards, guitar Mike Gibbins - vocals, drums, percussion Reed Kailing - lead vocals, guitar Donnie Dacus - vocals, guitar
Tom Evans' Badfinger 1983	Tom Evans - vocals, bass Bob Jackson - vocals, guitar, keyboards Tony Kaye - keyboards Glenn Sherba - guitar Lenny Campanaro - drums, percussion

Discography

Original albums

Year of Release	Title	Singles (Billboard/Cashbox ranking) [Melody Maker]
1969	Maybe Tomorrow (as "The Iveys")	"Maybe Tomorrow" #67
1970	Magic Christian Music #55	"Come and Get It" #7/#6 [#4]
1970	No Dice #28	"No Matter What" #8/#3 [#5]
1971	Straight Up #31	"Day After Day," #4/#3 [#10] "Baby Blue" #14/#10
1973	Ass #122	"Apple of My Eye" #102
1974	Badfinger #161	"Love Is Easy" (no charting) "I Miss You" (no charting)
1974	Wish You Were Here #148
1979	Airwaves #125	"Lost Inside Your Love" (no charting) "Love Is Gonna Come At Last" #69
1981	Say No More #155	"Hold On" #56
1990	Day After Day: Live
1997	BBC In Concert 1972-1973
2000	Head First
2002	Live 83 -- DBA-BFR

Compilations

Year of Release	Title
1989	Shine On (UK only)
1990	The Best of Badfinger, Vol. 2
1995	The Best Of Badfinger
2000	The Very Best Of Badfinger

References

• Dan Matovina: *Without You: The Tragic Story of Badfinger. ISBN 0-9657122-2-2

External links

• Badfinger Library
• Badfinger-Iveys
• Badfinger Biography Book
• Badfingerlinks.com